PV Design Optimization

This work centers on optimizing the conversion of solar energy to electricity using photovoltaics. Papers address detailed design features, as well as decomposing the cost components of photovoltaic electricity. We are combining the development of new quantitative decomposition models with detailed knowledge of solar energy conversion materials and devices.

Decomposition of the cost of photovoltaics: Photovoltaic cells have shown the most significant cost reductions of any electricity conversion technology. Understanding why this rapid improvement has occurred is important to understanding how to sustain it (and accelerate it) in the future. We are working to evaluate competing explanations for the dramatic cost reductions realized by photovoltaics (PV) over the last 30 years. Combining data analysis with theory development, we aim to identify the factors that best explain the extreme improvement seen by PV. From our findings, we will extract practical guidelines to help facilitate PVs continued high rate of improvement in the future.

PV materials design optimization: This work examines changing performance tradeoffs in photovoltaics through materials structuring. We focus on the dye-sensitized solar cell as a model device, with the aim of producing a general framework that can be applied to a wide range of devices.

In another project, we developed a simple and inexpensive technique for introducing a hierarchical pore structure in nanoparticle networks of a semiconductor (titanium dioxide) to tailor its light interaction properties while optimizing the transport paths, surface area and total porosity. This technique can be applied to the DSSC as well as to batteries and photocatalytic sensors.